


ask me how it felt when you

by Paper_Crane_Song



Category: The Man From U.N.C.L.E. (2015)
Genre: Drowning, Friendship, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Missing Scene, Touch-Starved
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-16
Updated: 2017-04-16
Packaged: 2018-10-19 04:22:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,121
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10632102
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Paper_Crane_Song/pseuds/Paper_Crane_Song
Summary: Secondary drowning is asphyxiation caused by the aspiration of water, after recovery from immersion into water, in the three-day period following the immersion episodeA missing scene from the film





	

**Author's Note:**

> Thank goodness secondary drowning is pretty uncommon, but I'll admit it was at the back of my mind when I watched the film, hence this story. Thanks for reading

“ _Keep quiet. Follow me."_

**Illya**

It is hard to keep quiet when his chest is convulsing and all he wants to do is hack and retch until he can breathe properly but Solo points at the dock and he can see figures moving in the darkness and he understands that if he surrenders to the coughing they will both be gunned down 

so he clenches his jaw and clamps his mouth shut and swallows furiously again and again as they swim and he is concentrating so hard that he nearly strikes his head on the wooden posts of the dockside and Solo swarms up the netting and he makes a decent attempt at following him and he cannot help but feel relief when Solo grabs his arms and hoists him up and over the side 

and as he struggles to his feet the urge to cough is so great that it makes his whole body hunch over and he covers his mouth in the crook of his arm and lets Solo guide him towards the scooter where he sinks down, his eyes tearing and Solo kicks the engine into action and they barely make it out the dock before he starts to cough, deep watery coughs that tear themselves from his chest and scrape his throat raw

and he hears Solo say, “You okay there, Peril?” 

but he's unable to answer him and then finally, mercifully, the coughing stops and he can breathe again.

He is starting to feel light-headed so he leans forward and rests his forehead on Solo's back. He feels Solo stiffen but he has no energy left for shame. He sits like that for most of the journey, his eyes closed and his head resting in the spot between Solo's shoulder blades, the muscles underneath no longer hard and tense but relaxed and soft. 

For once Cowboy isn't making fun of him. 

He tries opening his eyes again and now the lightspots have stopped their dancing so he straightens and as Solo turns down the street to the hotel he thinks of Gaby and the mission and adrenaline shoots through him, driving away the sickly pain that lies heavy in his lungs and he is ready to go once more.

* * *

 

 **Istanbul -** **Napoleon**

The plane door opens and the warmth breaks over them like a wave even though it's nearly midnight. When they arrive at the hotel it seems that UNCLE has a rather frugal policy when it comes to travel expenses so he and Peril will be sharing a room.

“I saw an interesting little bar on the way to the hotel,” he says casually, setting his suitcase on the unoccupied twin bed, “care to join me?” This is his ritual, his way of saluting a mission that is finished, a way to stop the unpleasantness from carrying over.

Kuryakin is slumped on the bed. “No. Am tired.”  He looks up at Napoleon then and the shadows under his eyes are the same colour as his bruises.

“All right.” He tosses the keys up in the air and catches them. “Don't wait up.”

Illya gives him a ghost of a smile. “Why would I wait for you, Cowboy?"

 Kuyu kebabı, coffee, baklava, more coffee, and when Napoleon returns in the early hours he's feeling a little wired from the effects of the hookah. The room is dark save for the light streaming out from under the bathroom door. _Odd_. He switches the bedroom light on and sure enough Kuryakin's bed is empty, the covers pulled back as if an attempt at sleep has been made. He reaches out to feel the bedsheets; they are cold.

He raps on the bathroom door. “Peril?”

There is no answer so he tries the handle but it is locked. _Damn Russian and his paranoia._ He raps harder. “Illya!”

Then he hears it behind the door, the sound of wheezing.

He resorts to kicking at the door, aiming at the weak point until on the third kick the door gives way. The smell of vomit greets him and Kuryakin is lying there on the floor.

“Illya?”

Even though he's conscious, Illya isn't seeing him. His head is thrown back, his neck muscles working, his back arching as he fights for air.

“Hold on." He goes to the phone, tells the front desk to send for an ambulance and is by his side again.

Illya's hands are scrabbling for purchase on the bathroom tiles, his face white and his eyes bloodshot. It's as if he's suffocating. For lack of anything better to do Napoleon pulls him into a sitting position. Illya's head falls forward to rest on Napoleon's shoulder and he can feel the heat radiating from him, feel his sweat-soaked hair. Illya's hands clench and tug at the fabric of his shirt and they are a tangle of limbs, Napoleon's arms around him keeping him upright. His gasps are taking on a desperate edge, worse than when Napoleon pulled him from the water only a few nights ago. He has a hunch this is related.

They stay like that until the paramedics arrive. Kuryakin's strangled breaths echo off the bathroom walls. It is the ride on the Vespa all over again, the helplessness, how he'd had no choice but to keep driving because the mission came first, the sudden awareness of pressure on his back and how it had made him feel connected, _needed_ even in a way he hadn't felt for years, not since the war, not since forever.

There is a loud commotion behind him as the paramedics burst into the room. There are three of them and they talk at him in stereo and indicate for him to let go of Illya.

“I can't speak Turkish,” he says but he drops his hands anyway. One of them fixes an oxygen mask over Illya's face. Illya's hands are still clenched in his shirt and they prise them away.

A paramedic asks him a question. 

"I still can't speak Turkish," he says with a forced calmness.

“Has he been near water?” the paramedic says again, switching to heavily accented English, and it seems that some of the unpleasantness has indeed carried over. Peril is staring at him, his eyes wide over the oxygen mask and Napoleon tries to concentrate on the directions to the hospital and agrees to meet them there but first he needs to call Waverly, Gaby too.

They rush Kuryakin - his _partner_ - away and he is left standing in the bathroom, empty, bereft, as if something precious has been taken from him, and it is this more than anything that scares him and causes his hands to shake as he picks up the telephone and calls Waverly.

 

_Finis_


End file.
